France to Host World's First Nuclear Fusion Plant

By REUTERS

New York Times

June 28, 2005

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Science's quest to find a cheap and
inexhaustible way to meet global energy needs took a major step
forward on Tuesday when a 30-nation consortium chose France to
host the world's first nuclear fusion reactor.

After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japan
and signed a deal to site the 10-billion-euroexperimental reactor in Cadarache, near Marseille.

The project will seek to turn seawater into fuel by
mimicking the way the sun produces energy. It would be cleaner
than current nuclear reactors, would not rely on enriched
uranium fuel or produce plutonium.

But critics argue it could be at least 50 years before a
commercially viable reactor is built, if at all.

``We are making scientific history,'' Janez Potocnik, the
European Union's Science and Research Commissioner, told a news
conference in Moscow, where the multinational partners in the
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project
were meeting. They also reached preliminary agreement on how to
fund one of the world's most expensive scientific experiments.

A nuclear fusion power station is the 'Holy Grail' for
scientists trying to find a viable alternative to the world's
depleting stocks of oil and gas. The search took on new
significance as crude this week reached a record price of
$60.95 a barrel in some trading.

Next week, a summit of the Group of Eight leading
industrial nations in Scotland is to discuss climate change,
widely blamed on burning fossil fuels for energy.

DECADES OF RESEARCH

Unlike fission reactors, which are used in existing nuclear
power stations and release energy by splitting atoms apart,
ITER would generate energy by combining them.

Power has been harnessed from fusion in laboratories but
scientists have so far been unable to build a commercially
viable reactor, despite decades of research.

The 500 megawatt ITER reactor will use deuterium, extracted
from seawater, as its major fuel and a giant electromagnetic
ring to fuse atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures.

One of the biggest challenges facing scientists is to build
a reactor that can sustain temperatures of about 100 million
Celsius (180 million F) for long enough to generate power.

``I give it a 50:50 chance of success but the engineering is
very difficult,'' said Ian Fells of Britain's Royal Academy of
Engineering.

``If we can really make this work there will be enough
electricity to last the world for the next 1,000 to 2,000
years,'' he said.

The ITER project began in 1985 but scientific challenges
and wrangling between its partners over the site and financing
have caused repeated delays.

At their meeting in Moscow, officials from ITER partners
China, the 25-nation EU, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the
United States chose France over Japan.

Japan will provide headquarters and research facilities.

``We believe that the ITER project should start as soon as
possible for the sake of mankind's future,'' said Nariaki
Nakayama, Japan's science minister.

The EU is to take on 40 percent of the project's cost,
France will pay 10 percent and the remaining five partners 10
percent each. Building the reactor is expected to take about
ten years at a cost of 4.6 billion euros ($6.14 billion).

But some scientists say it could take three times that long
and the sides have yet to reach a final agreement on a number
of issues, including financing, before the builders can move
in.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace estimates that if
the project yields any results at all, it will not be until the
second half of this century.

``At a time when it is universally recognized that we must
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers
it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this
project,'' it said.

France has been a big producer of nuclear energy since the
oil shocks of the 1970s and has 58 nuclear reactors, the most
in the world after the United States.

``It is a big success for France, for Europe and for all the
partners of ITER,'' French President Jacques Chirac said.